Official language facts for kids
An official language is a language having certain rights to be used in defined situations. These rights can be created in written form or by historic usage.
178 countries recognize an official language, 101 of them recognizing more than one. The government of Italy made Italian official only in 1999, and some nations (such as the United States, Mexico, and Australia) have never declared de jure official languages at the national level. Other nations have declared non-indigenous official languages.
Many of the world's constitutions mention one or more official or national languages. Some countries use the official language designation to empower indigenous groups by giving them access to the government in their native languages. In countries that do not formally designate an official language, a de facto national language usually evolves. English is the most common official or co-official language, with recognized status in 51 countries. Arabic, French, and Spanish are official or co-official languages in several countries.
An official language that is also an indigenous language is called endoglossic, one that is not indigenous is exoglossic. An instance is Nigeria which has three endoglossic official languages. By this, the country aims to protect the indigenous languages although at the same time recognising the English language as its lingua franca. In spatial terms, indigenous (endoglossic) languages are mostly employed in the function of official languages in Eurasia, while mainly non-indigenous (exoglossic) rest of the world.
History
Around 500 BC, when Darius the Great annexed Mesopotamia to the Achaemenid Empire, he chose a form of the Aramaic language (the so-called Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic) as the vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. Aramaic script was widely employed from Egypt in the southwest to Bactria and Sogdiana in the northeast. Texts were dictated in the native dialects and written down in Aramaic, and then read out again in the native language at the places they were received.
Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, standardized the written language of China after unifying the country in 221 BC. Literary Chinese would remain the standard written language for the next 2000 years. Standardization of the spoken language received less political attention, and Mandarin developed on an ad hoc basis from the dialects of the various imperial capitals until being officially standardized in the early twentieth century.
Statistics
The following languages are official (de jure or de facto) in three or more sovereign states. In some cases, a language may be defined as different languages in different countries. Examples are Hindi and Urdu, Malay and Indonesian, Serbian and Croatian, Persian and Tajik.
- English: 58 UN states and 31 dependencies
- French: 28 UN states and 11 dependencies
- Arabic: 23 UN states and Palestine, 2 non-UN states on the same territory, and 1 dependency
- Spanish: 20 UN states and 1 dependency
- Portuguese: 9 UN states and 1 dependency
- German: 6 UN states
- Russian: 5 UN and 4 unrecognized states
- Serbo-Croatian: 4 UN states and 1 partially recognized state on the same territory
- Malay: 4 UN states and 1 dependency
- Swahili: 4 UN states (5 counting Comorian)
- Italian: 3 UN states and Vatican City
- Persian: 3 UN states and 1 dependency
- Dutch: 3 UN states (4 counting Afrikaans)
- Somali: 3 UN states and 1 unrecognized state on the same territory
- Sotho: 3 UN states
- Standard Chinese (Mandarin): 2 UN states and Taiwan
- Tamil: 2 UN states
- Hindustani: 3 UN states (counting Fijian Hindi)
Some countries—like Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States—have no official language recognized as such at a national level. On the other extreme, Bolivia officially recognizes 37 languages, the most of any country in the world. Second to Bolivia is India with 22 official languages. South Africa is the country with the third lead with 12 official languages that all have equal status; Bolivia gives primacy to Spanish, and India gives primacy to English and Hindi .
Political alternatives
The selection of an official language (or the lack thereof) is often contentious. An alternative to having a single official language is "official multilingualism", where a government recognizes multiple official languages. Under this system, all government services are available in all official languages. Each citizen may choose their preferred language when conducting business. Most countries are multilingual and many are officially multilingual. Taiwan, Canada, the Philippines, Belgium, Switzerland, and the European Union are examples of official multilingualism. This has been described as controversial and, in some other areas where it has been proposed, the idea has been rejected. It has also been described as necessary for the recognition of different groups or as an advantage for the country in presenting itself to outsiders.
Related pages
Images for kids
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A bilingual Soviet-era street name sign in the two de facto official languages of the Latvian SSR (Latvian and Russian)
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See also
In Spanish: Idioma oficial para niños
- Language policy
- List of official languages by country and territory
- List of official languages by institution
- Medium of instruction
- Minority language
- Official script
- Regional language
- Working language
